After weeks of local speculation, the purchasers of 55,000 acres of northern California land have been revealed. The group Flannery Associates – backed by a cohort of Silicon Valley investors – has quietly purchased $800m worth of agricultural and empty land, the New York Times has reported. Their goal is to build a utopian new town that will offer its thousands of residents reliable public transportation and urban living, all of which would operate using clean energy.
That’s really not a decent excuse for making a 2+ hour commute. The insanity of the number of people living in places like Vallejo just to commute to San Francisco is staggering to me. Remote work for anyone that can do it should be the norm. The traffic in the Bay Area is back to being just downright awful. When most people were staying home it was actually nice to drive around to different places.
US cities could be easily compressed to be third their size with people having access to green areas, walkable neighborhoods and basic convenience by the door but having 5 square meters of grass in front of their porch and F-350 parked outside is just too important for them.